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Welcome to new members

There have been a lot of changes to the member representatives of the SAPC and we’d like to take this opportunity to welcome new members.

Membership of the SAPC is widely drawn from organisations and bodies throughout Scotland who have an involvement in matters affecting safety. The Council consists of representatives from Local Authorities (including Education, Social Work and Roads Departments), Police, Fire Services, Health Boards, Housing Associations, Motoring Organisations, and voluntary and professional bodies.

The principal role of the Council is to bring together all of those interested in preventing death and injury arising from accidents in a way that is not possible in any other forum. By sharing the problems and learning from the contributions of its members, the Council is in a special position to identify trends in accidents in Scotland and, more importantly, to concentrate the combined weight of its membership towards achieving practical solutions.

The breadth of involvement by members of the Council is difficult to match in any other context. If there is any doubt whether or not they have a problem to attack it is easily demonstrated by a few statistics for Scotland.

In 2006, 314 people died in road accidents, and a further 17,000 were injured. It is estimated that each fatal road accident now costs about £1.6 million. 232 people died following an accident in their own homes in 2002 and an estimated 270,000 injuries were dealt with by Scottish hospitals. Drowning also claimed 109 lives in Scotland in 2004. A large proportion of these accidents happen in the vulnerable age groups - the very young and the very old.

The Council holds its Annual General Meeting for all members in October each year. The detailed business of the Council is carried out through three standing committees, acting with delegated powers in the following fields: Home Safety; Road Safety; Water & Leisure Safety.

Each Committee is charged with formulating policy, making representation on safety matters at national and local level, developing promotional and educational campaigns, and seeking to maintain public awareness of the effects of accidents at all levels and in all activities.

The Council is allied to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the staff in RoSPA’s office in Edinburgh provide the Secretariat and administrative support to the Council.

SAPC Conference

The Conference is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a sharing of information and exchange of ideas on how we can work together effectively to promote accident prevention as an integral part of community safety.

Information about this year’s Conference was circulated in June and, to date, the response has been positive with around half of the allocated rooms taken. Arrangements for the event are almost finalised and the latest draft of the programme is as follows:

Monday 3rd September

1100 Welcome
        Jim Black, Vice-President, SAPC
1115 Keynote Address
        Dr Harry Burns, CMO
1145 Parallel Session 1
HS   The Risk Factory
        Ann Thomson
RS   Making Choices
        Jane Greer, Fife Road Safety Unit
WLS Leisure Safety: What is the SAPC Role? An Opportunity to give guidance for future SAPC Work
        Bob Calvert & Martin Rae
1245 Lunch
1345 Parallel Session 2
HS   Homecheck in Edinburgh
        John Richardson, Care & Repair Edinburgh
RS   Getting Active and Keeping Safe
        Philippa Cochrane, Sustrans
WLS Outdoor Activities Supervision: Qualifications for Supervisors
        Cliff Nelson, RLSSUK
1445 Core Session 1
        The Consequences of Accidental Injuries
        Dr Tom Beattie, Edinburgh Sick Children’s Hospital
1515 Tea
1545 “Question Time”
1700 Close of Session
1845 Civic Reception
1930 Dinner

Tuesday 4th September

0930 Core Session 2
        Opportunities in Legislation and Requirements
        Eleanor Thompson, East Renfrewshire Council
1000 Parallel Session 3
HS   Ageing Well Roadshow
        Anita Jefferies, Edinburgh Leisure

RS   IAM Young Driver
        Ben Devlin
WLS Gathering Drowning Statistics Across The UK
        Peter Wade, Chair, Information Group, National Water Safety Forum & Nina Saunders
1100 Coffee
1130 Core Session 3
        Sources of statistical information
        Brian Jaffrey, Scottish Ambulance Service
1200 Core Session 4
        RoSPA’s Key Issues
        Errol Taylor, Deputy Chief Executive
1230 Lunch
1330 Parallel Session 4
HS   East End Child Safety Project
        Jackie Ryan, Project Co-ordinator
RS   Safety Cameras: Life after hypothecation
        Jim Dale, Scottish Executive – Safety Camera Programme Office
WLS Drowning Prevention Strategies Using Statistics
        Iain Campbell, MCA, and Janet Castro, RLSS
1430 Core Session 5
        Transferring RS Methodology
        Mike McDonnell, Road Safety Scotland
1500 Closing Remarks
        Jim Black

The Conference will be held in Airth Castle Hotel and Spa, near Falkirk, on 3-4 September. A booking form can be downloaded from our website.

SAPC Structure and Constitution

The SAPC has been going through a process of review over the past year and, following on from the recent consultation on changes to the structure, the Structure and Constitution Committee has taken forward the preferred option and looked at what revisions will be required to the Constitution. While the Committee was looking at the Constitution it was thought necessary to make changes to other items of the Constitution that did not fit with the way the SAPC worked or were not set out clearly. These proposals will be put to the AGM in October where members will be asked to adopt the new Constitution.

Among the many changes proposed, an important matter is the membership of the SAPC, the Committee recognised a need to distinguish between those organisations that pay a membership fee and those that are invited to become members to provide expertise on the Principal Committees.

Organisations that pay a membership fee (i.e. Local Authorities, Health Boards and Corporations) would become full members which would entitle them to send representatives to each of the principal committees, to be represented at the AGM by one person who shall hold a voting privilege.

Organisations that do not pay a membership fee would become associate members and would be invited to send a representative to sit on the appropriate Principal Committee(s). The representative would be entitled to vote on that Committee and to be Chair or Vice-Chair. They would also be entitled to attend the AGM but would not be entitled to vote or stand for Office.

Another proposed change would allow for the creation of other Principal Committees and of a Committee Forum. Additionally the restriction on the number of meetings a year each Committee must have would be lifted. The make up of the Executive Committee would also change to include the Vice-Chairs of each of the Principal Committees instead of the Secretaries.

There would also be changes which define the roles and responsibilities of the President, Secretary and Treasurer and how the Council’s finances are looked after.

The full text of the Constitution will be circulated with the papers for the AGM. The current Constitution is available on the SAPC Website and any suggested changes should be sent in writing to the Secretary by 8 August.

SAPC AGM

The SAPC Annual General Meeting will be held on 3 October and, along with changes to the Constitution, there will be an Election to the posts of President, Vice President and Treasurer. These Offices have an important role to play in the future of the SAPC and it is envisaged that the new President will lead the SAPC into a new era through forging links with other organisations and raising our profile. The papers for the AGM will be sent to all members in early September.

Calendar of Events

The following list gives the dates of forthcoming meetings of the Council. A list of proposed dates for next year will be circulated with the papers for the AGM.

Annual Conference

Road Safety Committee

The Road Safety Committee met in May and despite being the day before the Elections there was a good turnout.

Bob McLean from the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) gave a presentation on the Arrive Alive programme. The programme is designed for 17-25 year olds and aims to provide them with information on the driving test as well as preventing them having crashes by raising their awareness of road safety.

East Renfrewshire Council has devised new guidelines for installing traffic calming measures and Cllr Shaw asked they be distributed to members.

Bill Smith had attend the Planning for Safer Streets conference and gave a report to the meeting. In the past the emphasis was on the movement of traffic and issues such as the safety of children going to school was not taken into account. Phil Edwards had conducted a study which found that children from the most deprived areas could be twenty times more likely to be involved in a road accident than those from the least deprived areas. There could be 600 fewer deaths per year if the accident rate was the same as for the least deprived.

The representative from ACPOS gave an update on road safety campaigns and reported that during a day of action over 100 people had been caught using their mobile phone whilst driving. The representative from CFOA(S) reported that a road safety sub group has been set up within their Community Safety Forum and circulated the Fire and Rescue Service Road Safety Newsletter.

Water and Leisure Safety Committee

The recent local authority elections meant that the Committee lost some long-serving members from around Scotland. They made different contributions and all were supportive, understanding the uniqueness of the SAPC. Thank you to all members for their contribution towards preventing accidents in the aquatic and leisure environments.

Special appreciation for contributions made over a wheen o’ years must be made to Councillor and Past President Jim Shaw. Acknowledgement will be made elsewhere in SAPC but the WLS Committee benefited from his genuine and passionate interest in water

and leisure safety. Even after his ‘elevation’ to President he retained that interest and was a frequent attendee at meetings. Always willing to argue his strong views he will be missed by his WLS colleagues. Thanks Jim.

The Committee had wanted to update its knowledge of the vital Fire & Rescue Services which came into being with the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and which, among other things, placed responsibility for response to water incidents and brought the new name of ‘Fire & Rescue’ into being. Bill Rice and Willie Reed from Strathclyde Service attended the meeting in June where they discussed how Fire & Rescue operates on several levels in response to incidents involving water. These range from basic procedures to the more sophisticated, carried out by specialised crews employing rescue craft, Hansa board and jet ski. A Maritime Incident Response Group which deals with ship fires has been developed. Certainly from an outside perspective, Fire & Rescue has brought co-ordination and the development of successful and innovative rescue methods which are warmly welcomed.

We would encourage all with an interest in water and leisure safety to book up for the SAPC Conference. Apart from excellent core speakers, delegates will have the opportunity to voice their views on water and leisure safety and action by SAPC. We need contributions on what ‘leisure’ safety means and what the role of SAPC should be.

The vexed question about young people on organised trips to the countryside will be addressed in ‘Outdoor Activities Supervision and qualifications for Supervisors. To be effective about accident prevention we need to have accurate information and Peter Wade of the British Waterways will explain what the National Water Safety Forum is doing to ensure more timely and accurate statistics. This follows on from recent years’ work by SAPC on researching Scottish drownings where it was found that we had more than one and a half times the fatalities which previous methods captured. The final session is around what we do with those statistics and how do we more effectively turn accurate information to successful accident prevention. This requires input and good debate from all those interested in trying to reduce the deaths of people involved in recreation in Scotland.

PLEASE COME AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE WHOLE CONFERENCE – YOU REALLY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.